Rodney King, the black motorist whose violent beating by white Los Angeles police officers after a car chase in 1991 helped fuel one of the worst race riots in U.S. history, died Sunday. He was 47.
Mr. King apparently drowned at his home in Rialto (San Bernardino County), according to local police. His fiancee called 911 early Sunday, saying she had discovered Mr. King at the bottom of his swimming pool. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A preliminary investigation showed no signs of foul play.
Two decades ago, Mr. King, then 25, found himself at the center of one of the most volatile debates over race and the law since the end of the civil rights movement. To many people, especially in the black community, he became a symbol of the police brutality that had long been inflicted on African Americans.
Sharpton comments

"History will record that it was Rodney King's beating and his actions that made America deal with the excessive misconduct of law enforcement," the Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement after Mr. King's death.
On March 3, 1991, Mr. King was driving on a Los Angeles interstate when highway patrol officers attempted to stop him for speeding. During the high-speed chase that ensued, members of the Los Angeles police joined the pursuit and assumed control when Mr. King ultimately pulled over.
Although he got out of the car, Mr. King resisted arrest and at one point threw officers off his back. L.A. police officers testified to their fears that Mr. King appeared to be under the influence of the drug PCP, which can unleash aggression in users.
Test results would show, however, that Mr. King had been drinking. To subdue him, the officers fired a stun gun and beat him with batons, leaving him bloodied and bruised. His cheekbone, skull bones and ankle were broken.
A nearby resident, George Holliday, was wakened by the noise and began filming the incident from his apartment balcony with a camcorder. Holliday later released the grainy footage to the news media, which played and replayed the incomplete, frequently edited footage, searing the beating into national memory.
The next year, four L.A. officers were tried in connection with the incident. A California jury, with no black members, acquitted three of assault charges, and a mistrial was declared for a fourth.
Parts of Los Angeles erupted in riots, which left more than 50 people dead and more than 2,000 wounded, while hundreds of fires broke out and many businesses were looted.
"Can we get along?"

As the violence continued, Mr. King emerged from his home to make a plaintive appeal: "People, I just want to say - can we all get along? Can we get along?"
Those words have become part of the popular culture and have helped to keep his name, and the events of 20 years ago, alive in American consciousness.
Rodney Glen King was born April 2, 1965, in Sacramento. He grew up in Altadena (Los Angeles County) with several brothers and sisters. For much of his life, he was known as Glen.
He had worked in construction after dropping out of school. At the time of the beating, he was a manual laborer at Dodger Stadium and was on parole from prison. He had been sentenced after pleading guilty in a robbery.
During Mr. King's childhood and adolescence, his father had often forced Mr. King to help him with his janitorial work until 2 a.m. on school nights, sometimes beating him.
"Maybe those whuppings prepared me for Koon," Mr. King once said, referring to Sgt. Stacey Koon, one of the officers involved in case.
Although the four officers who beat Mr. King - Koon, Theodore Briseno, Timothy Wind and Laurence Powell - were acquitted of state charges, Koon and Powell were convicted of federal civil rights charges and were sentenced to more than two years in prison.